Prototype
by Fayrandothneil
Summary: Vlad Masters had created the perfect weapon, only problem was it was unstable. The GIW ordered it to be terminated, but Vlad had other ideas to save his creation. Now in the hands of his former best friends, the Phantom Project Prototype must learn fast!
1. Prolog Termination

**_I know that I've got other stuff to work on, but I have this one in my head and I love it! _**

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**_Prolog—Termination_**

"What?!" Vlad Masters yelled incredulously at the GIW general. "We can't just do that! Do you know how long this took us? Almost twenty years of planning, researching, developing—and you want to end it all on a whim!?"

The black man looked down on the fuming scientist with little sympathy for what Masters was saying. His sunglasses hid his eyes, but the way his mouth frowned, the general could care less about what Vlad wanted.

"It is not whim sir, it is fact," the general spoke with authority in a scathing monotone.

The general turned his gaze back onto the object that was being discussed. The body that was in a half-frozen, half-sleeping state was still pale looking behind the yellow-tinted glass of the tube. It had been pulled out of the wall just like it would at the city morgue; only, the subject wasn't dead.

"It is unstable," the general said clipped. "You cannot find a solution to this problem."

"_Not yet_," Vlad said, stressing each word to try and get through the general's thick head. "We may be close to one."

"_May _is not a word I am fond of Masters," the general turned from the subject and walked purposely towards the door. "If you can't get anywhere with this one, then melt it down and start over. Our money will not be wasted on fruitless acts. We've been waiting to see results Masters, and so far, we haven't seen any."

"Then how about you do my job and I can just blow people up?" Vlad shot back. "This isn't easy you know. Messing with genetics is like handling the most fragile glass on the planet. One wrong move and it can destroy everything."

The general waved it off as he brushed some invisible dirt off of his pristine suit.

"And one wrong move on your part, and your funding will be cut," the general threatened. "Start over if you have to Masters, but I will not fund this any longer. Terminate that worthless piece of flesh, or you will be terminated—permanently."

Vlad ground his teeth harshly as the general left the holding-lab. His anger was lost however when he turned back to look at the 'worthless piece of flesh' the general had been referring too. To Vlad, he was much more than a science project, he was almost like a son in some odd way. It was true that Vlad had spent more of the lab's money into helping out this one subject than anything else. In actuality, it should have been terminated long ago, but Vlad never had the heart. This was his first success to get the Phantom Project into an actual form, there had been fifty failed experiments and this one had been the only one to make it, but not for much longer.

"I won't let them hurt you," he vowed to the silent form. "I promise, but what am I going to do?"


	2. Chapter 1 Special Delivery

_**Chapter 1—Special Delivery**_

"How many times do I have to say it? We didn't order anything!"

Jack Fenton was becoming incredibly frustrated with the delivery men who had unexpectedly shown up at his door that afternoon and shoved a giant crate into his house. He had been arguing with them for the past half hour that neither he nor his wife had anything shipped overnight from the east coast. The men strongly disagreed.

"Look here mac," one of the men said, smacking his gum between his teeth while pointing at the clipboard in his dirty hands. "Is this the Fenton residence?"

"Yes it is," Jack growled.

"Is your name Jack Fenton?"

"Yes."

"Then this is your stuff, and you got to sign for it," the man thrust the board into Jack's big hands forcefully. "I don't send the stuff, I just deliver it. If you have a problem with it, send it back."

"But there is no return address," Jack nearly yelled.

"Then that's your problem."

Jack was just about to show this guy a piece of his mind when his wife walked up behind him.

"Jack, just sign for it," Maddie said. "Whatever it is, we can probably use it anyway."

Jack mumbled about how screwed up the system was as he scribbled his signature onto the paper and handed it back to the delivery guys.

"You folks have a good day now," the man said as the truck drove off.

"I can't believe the nerve of that guy," Jack grumbled as he shut the door. "Now we have more useless stuff to worry about."

Jazz had been reading on the couch and just now looked up at her parents. She gave the crate and the large envelope that was on top of it a curious look before putting her book down.

"Well, let's open it up," Maddie said cheerfully. "I'll get the crowbar."

She walked out of the room and down to the lab for the object as Jack and Jazz waited patiently for her to return. Jack reached for the envelope and looked at the corner where there should have been a return address to return this junk. There was none.

"Might as well," he sighed in defeat.

He tore open the envelope and brought out the contents. Papers, lots of them, adorned his hand as he leafed through them. He frowned at them and had to blink twice at what they said.

"What in the world?" he mumbled to himself as he began to read the first page. "What kind of delivery is this?"

Maddie had returned with the crowbar, but Jack was too engrossed with the papers to notice. His attention was torn away when he heard his daughter scream and his wife gasp in horrified surprise. He looked up and dropped the papers as his mouth flew open.

A person was on their floor in a tube.

"Now this _has _to be a mistake," Jack said after the shock wore off.

He bent down close to the tube and read the etching in the side. **P-47-D9Y** was what it read.

"What-what is it?" Jazz asked, face pale and eyes wide.

"It's in a cryogenic state," Maddie marveled, kneeling down by her husband. "Those men had no idea what they were delivering. This has to be government property."

"By why is it in our living room?" Jack asked. "I bet those papers will tell us something."

He gathered up the fallen papers and found what he was looking for, a lettered enveloped addressed to all of them—minus Jazz.

_**Dear Jack and Maddie, **_

_**You are probably wondering why I am writing to you after all these years, and why there is a government test subject in your house. The reason is very simple; actually, maybe it is not. **_

_**I'll start from the beginning. Almost twenty years ago, right after the lab accident, I was called to do some government work for the GIW. They loved my work so much that when I was released from the hospital, they took me in and gave me a job. They wanted me to start a different project, creating the perfect solider you might say. That is what you have in your possession now. **_

_**I became head of the Phantom Project as it was known and Daniel was my first success with it. Unfortunately, there is a problem. Daniel was and is only a prototype of the Phantom Project. I spent more funds on him than anything else and that's what got us into deep trouble. They wanted me to terminate him, but I couldn't. Daniel is much more than a subject to me, and I couldn't let him die. So I sent him to you for safe keeping, just until I can think of a way out of this mess. **_

_**The other papers are every file I managed to give you on the Phantom Project and Daniel's own personal files. They will tell you everything you need to know about him. Keep in mind that Daniel has only been woken from this stage twice in his existence and we found out early on that he is claustrophobic. Be gentle with him for I explained everything to him before shipping him out and he understood. He will not harm you nor will he fight you, he may be the most obedient thing on the planet if not the universe. **_

_**Daniel is also quite unstable. I managed to fix it a little before I sent him to you, but not by much. He will start to deteriorate after wasting too much of his spectral energy. Try and keep him in human form at all times to prevent this from happening. Maybe you could find a cure yourselves? You are brilliant people and you could help Daniel in the one way I could not. Please keep him safe for me. I do not wish any harm on anyone, and the government thinks that I did terminate him, but if they ever find out, just hand him back over. I do not wish to put your family at harm if it does come to that. **_

_**Please, keep him well, **_

_**Vladimir Masters **_

**_

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_**

Spooky...


	3. Chapter 2 Wakey Wakey

**_Sorry it took so long to get this up, but the muse had temporarily left to infulance someone else for a while. It's back though and I promise to cage it for later use. _**

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_**Chapter 2—Wakey Wakey**_

The Fenton family stared at the letter, then back at the boy trapped in the yellow-tinted tube.

"I don't believe this," Maddie muttered, shaking her head. "This is impossible."

"I know, but we do have Vlad's notes," Jack said, giving Maddie the papers.

"Yes, and according to this, he can only go about four hours without air, and it's not being fed to him by the tube. We have to release him."

"Might I suggest doing that in the lab?" Jazz asked looking warily at the prototype Phantom.

"You're right Jazzy," Jack said as he grabbed one end of the tube.

Maddie grabbed the other end and together, they navigated it downstairs to the lab. They set him on an examination table instead of the floor and started to try and find a switch to open the subject's prison. Maddie looked back at the blueprints of the casing when their search turned up fruitless.

"It is voice activated," she said after reading. "The command word is release."

A hissing sound echoed throughout the quiet lab as the glass slid back and exposed the being inside to the atmosphere. He took a quiet breath and slowly opened his blue eyes groggily. Jack, remembering in Vlad's letter that the boy was claustrophobic, reached in and pulled the groggy being out, laying him on the other table to get his bearings in line.

The family watched in fascination and wary as the boy came back to the world. His arms pushed him up into a sitting position on the table and he looked around the lab, calculating everything about it. His eyes stopped roaming when he saw the giant hole in the wall that was the ghost portal, but he continued his exploration soon after he stared at it for a number of two minutes. His eyes rested on the Fentons and his back became a little straighter when he saw them.

"What do we do now?" Jazz asked. "Does he even talk?"

"Well, Vlad called him Daniel in the letter," Maddie said, and she saw the boy's eyes spark in recognition at the name and he gave them his full attention. "I really don't know what he's supposed to do, but from the description, he's some kind of weapon."

"He looks harmless enough," Jazz said.

"And Vlad said to keep him in human form at all times," Jack mused. "I wonder if he got his theory of ghost hybrids to work."

"Maybe, we'll find out when we go through these files. Jazz honey, can you take him up to the guest bedroom, and make sure no one sees him through the window."

Jazz seemed skeptical of talking to the being that was being called Daniel, but she wasn't one to give up so easily.

"Okay then," she mumbled as she walked up to him. "Follow me."

The boy got off of the table and followed Jazz like an obedient dog up the stairs and out of sight of the two parents. Jazz looked over her shoulder constantly as he followed her. He never even moved his head to the side to take in his other surroundings. It was odd, he acted so much like a robot, yet everything about him told her that he was organic.

"You can stay in here," she told him, opening up the guest bedroom door.

Daniel walked inside and looked around just like he did with the lab a few moments ago. He became fascinated with the sunlight pouring in from the closed curtains, staring at them so fixedly that you would think he had never seen sunlight before.

"Okay, weird," Jazz mumbled, rolling her eyes. "It's just the sun, haven't you ever heard of the sun before?"

Daniel turned his attention back to her, and he looked confused.

"Oh right, you've only been awake to the world twice," she said shaking her head. "You probably didn't have much time to marvel at everything."

Daniel only lowered his brows in more confusion at her.

"Maybe I can teach you?" she asked him, but she didn't get an answer. "Let's start with introductions: I'm Jazz."

She held out her hand automatically for him to shake, but he only stared at it in bafflement. Jazz rolled her eyes as she remembered that he didn't know what to do.

"You shake my hand, it's a polite greeting," she explained.

Daniel oddly took her hand and she made the motions of raising it up and down. She noticed that he was kind of cold and light, but he didn't seem sick and he looked perfectly fine.

Jazz let go of his hand first, since it was obvious that he didn't know when to release his own grip, and strode over to the curtains to open them up slightly for the sun to peek in a little better. Daniel moved back out of the sun's rays as they came closer to him, gliding on the floor to his feet.

"It's not going to harm you," Jazz said.

She stuck her hand out into the beam and Daniel watched as the form of her hand was blocking the sun and a perfect image of it was being reflected on the floor.

"It's called a shadow, everyone has one," Jazz said, inviting him over where she stood.

Daniel came over warily, never taking his eyes off of the sun rays, and stepped next to Jazz. He tensely stuck his hand out into the sun, as if it was going to fry him.

"See, you're fine," Jazz told him after a moment of nothing-filled-silence.

Daniel looked down on the floor where Jazz's shadow was, but that was all. Jazz looked down as well and frowned.

"The light's passing through you," she said after a moment of thought. "It must have something to do with your abilities, whatever they are."

Daniel frowned at her.

"Never mind," Jazz rolled her eyes. "I'll be back in a minute, don't move."

She didn't wait for his nod of acknowledgement as she shuffled out of the room and back down to the lab.

"Please tell me we aren't keeping him," Jazz begged her parents.

"Jazz, he has nowhere else to go," her mother reasoned, looking over a rather thick book at the same time. "Besides, no one else would know how to take care of him. He's very different from a human."

"How so?" Jazz asked, hands on hips.

"Well, for one, his DNA is unstable," Jack said, coming over to join the conversation. "If he uses too much energy—whatever that means—he's literally fall apart."

"Or melt," Maddie said nodding. "His components are completely alien to us, but Vlad did manage to get us a rather large file and the blueprints. We can figure it out, it's very self-explanatory actually."

"Okay," Jazz said, not really believing it all and barely understanding it, "any reasons why he can't talk?"

"Oh he can talk," Jack said, going over to the computer to open up a file. "His brain is highly active. Each moment he looks at something, he can tell the dimensions of it, how much it weighs, and all sorts of stuff I never even knew was possible. It's like his thinking process is super-computer based, only this would take a computer for a loop."

"What do you mean?" Jazz asked.

"I mean that with a computer, it just sits in there and waits to be extrapolated. With Danny, he uses what he observes."

"It means sweetheart that Danny probably doesn't need to be put in school," Maddie explained at the confused face on her daughter. "He can self-teach himself faster and better then a teacher can. In fact, he probably knows more than the best minds in the world."

"Hey, where is he anyway?" Jack asked, scratching his head in thought. "Did you leave him alone upstairs?"

"I told him not to move," Jazz shrugged, already caring less about this freak of science.

"Well, that might be fine, but I don't feel comfortable leaving him alone like that," Maddie said, heading for the stairs. "Who knows what might happen?"

"Right Mads," Jack called up after her. "Bring him down and we'll run that diagnostic!"

"Diagnostic, on a person?" Jazz asked incredulously. "Dad, he's not a machine. In fact, he shouldn't even exist."

"But he thinks like a machine Jazz, and he does exist, so that means he has to be taken care of," Jack was serious, which was rare for him. "Don't worry, as he learns more he'll be able to take care of himself, but he's not going to learn much if we don't help him understand."

"I thought you said he could teach himself fine," Jazz was confused and a little more than frustrated.

"Book smart Jazz, not world smart," Jack said getting up out of the chair. "He may be smart, but he's as gullible as a three-year-old. He's got to learn how the world works, how people work, and you can help with that."

"I'm not helping that freak," Jazz nearly screeched.

"Jazz," Jack said sternly, "I don't want him to hear you say that."

"Why, it's not like he has emotions to hurt."

"He does, he just hasn't experienced them yet. I don't want his first negative emotion to come from this house. If he doesn't trust us, then he can up and leave without us stopping him."

"How can he do that? It's not like he can walk through the wall."

Jack was about to impute, but Maddie had come back down the stairs with Danny in tow.

"What was all the shouting?" Maddie asked, Danny watching them with interested and awaiting eyes.

"I'll tell you later," Jack said as Jazz pushed past Danny and trudged back up the stairs.

* * *

**_Seems that Jazz has some issues. _**


	4. Chapter 3 Questions

_**This one is short, yes, but I like it.**_

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Chapter 3—Questions

Danny felt around the lab as the lights were turned off. His eyesight adjusted easily enough, but he still wasn't sure if he liked the feeling or not of his sockets changing their molecular form to that of a being long forgotten. Once his eyes changed, he saw everything in clarity again and went around the wall of the Fenton's lab, being wary of the objects that could harm him if he got too close.

"I think that's the last of it," Maddie said, switching the lights back on for them to see clearly.

Danny's eyes readjusted and he blinked away the spots that were in front of his sight. He saw the Fentons writing down on their clipboards and checking every so often that he was still in the room. Danny wasn't sure why they kept checking, perhaps parenthood brought with it a type of paranoia that couldn't be ignored, even if the child they were watching wasn't their own.

"Sight's good," Jack nodded to something his wife had said that Danny didn't catch. "He's quite a piece of work."

Danny unconsciously puffed his chest out a little and held his head higher at the compliment—he had never felt pride before and it was something he could get use to. Only Vlad complimented him on his abilities, but it wasn't the same coming from someone he barely knew.

"Yes, he is remarkable," Maddie smiled down at him. "He doesn't seem to have attained any damage while he was shipped here, so that's good. It says here to make sure to check for headaches. Nothing hurts does it Danny?"

Danny shook his head, wondering why he liked his new name so much. He preferred it over Daniel, that was for sure.

"All right then," Maddie set aside her list and motioned for Danny to join her. "Let's go upstairs and we can get a room ready for you."

Danny obeyed her calling hand and followed Mrs. Fenton up the stairs and into the kitchen where he saw the daughter moodily reading a book. Danny liked Jazz, she was smart and he liked that—he knew he could learn a lot from her—but for some reason, he got the feeling that she really didn't like him. Mrs. Fenton didn't seem to mind or didn't know that her daughter was staring coldly at the guest from the corner of her eye as they past her.

"Jazz, could you help us set up the spare room for Danny?" Maddie asked.

"Sorry, I have homework," Jazz replied, shutting her book and going into a different room.

Danny didn't like the signals he was picking up from the daughter. He might not have been experienced in reacting with humans, but his programming was very detailed about signals and body language for these strange creatures. He could tell that Jazz was upset and hostile towards him, but for all of his brains, Danny couldn't figure out why.

Maddie on the other hand was different. She was unsure about how to act around him, but she was curious and fascinated by him and his origins. She was much more caring then any person he had come across besides Vlad and he liked her for it. He knew that he could trust her.

"Well, I guess we'll have to take care of it ourselves," Maddie shrugged and led Danny up the stairs and back into the guest room. "We'll have to get you some clothes of your own and such, but I think this will work out just fine."

Danny looked down at his grey uniform he was use to seeing and wondered why he would need different clothes—didn't all humans wear what was comfortable to them?

"You might also have to enroll in the school, but that can wait until after Christmas," Maddie said as she went into the bathroom to see what was needed. "You have to know human behavior before you go outside and interact on your own."

Maddie grabbed a spare toothbrush and soap from the cabinet and set them by the sink. She turned to look at Danny and wondered why he was just standing there. She knew that he was programmed to obey orders without question, but it seemed that he didn't know what to do with himself half of the time. Even now, Danny was looking up at her expectantly, waiting for an order to carry out like some sort of perfect soldier.

"Danny, tell me," Maddie said looking at the boy. "Do you know exactly what you were designed for?"

"I'm a prototype," Danny answered mechanically, "my design if faulty."

"But what is your original programming and function?"

"Exploration, field study, human enhancement, battle, espionage—anything that they need me to be."

"And who are they?"

"That information is unknown."

"Of course," Maddie rolled her eyes and crossed her arms—high annoyance. "Do you know what you are?"

"Human-ghost recombinant," Danny said automatically. "Status unstable, source for unstable agent—unknown."

Maddie stared at him as he said the information like a computer would, and at how much he already knew.

"Do you know why you're here?" Maddie asked quietly.

"For safe keeping," Danny didn't look very sure of his words. "I fear it a lie though."

"Why?"

"They don't save anything—it's either production or termination," Danny looked thoughtful for a moment before he lowered his head in uncertainty. "I was a terminated prototype. They weren't happy with me."

"Yes," Maddie said, barely a whisper.

"But I'm not gone, now they'll be mad."

"Do you know if they will find you?"

"Unlikely," Danny said with certainty. "They have much to deal with."

"If you're sure."

"Yes."

Danny suddenly grabbed his middle in surprise. Maddie only chuckled a little.

"You're hungry," Maddie explained as his stomach growled silently again. "It's a natural human reaction to an empty stomach."

"So this is what hunger feels like?" Danny asked, confused and uneasy at the same time.

"I think I can help you fix it though," Maddie smiled at him. "Come on, you can eat something in the kitchen."


End file.
